Don’t mourn, organise.
406 Days (PG) is a documentary detailing the long, bitter industrial action waged by ex-Debenhams workers after they were made redundant during the early days of the Covid lockdown in 2020.
Describing themselves more as an extended family than co-workers — some of the women had worked together for decades — the ex-employees refused to go quietly and demanded the ‘2 + 2’ redundancy package they had previously negotiated in good faith; when that wasn’t forthcoming, the workers, the vast majority of them women, organised into picket lines and blockades designed to prevent the removal of stock from the stores.
Joe Lee’s film is told chronologically, employing straight-to-camera interviews with a host of ex-Debenhams workers to tell the story of initial shock and anger, and how they very quickly developed a nationwide communication network that allowed them to maintain the longest-running industrial action in the history of the Irish state.
The film is, by its nature, a touch repetitive at times, but it also lays bare blood-boiling abuse of workers’ rights while celebrating what can be achieved by hard work, solidarity, innovation, and sacrifice.
(cinema release)
